Edmund Kolkop and Slavski jezik by Bohumil Holý. Both projects, published in 1912 and 1920 respectively, show a clear tendency towards simplification, for example by eliminating grammatical gender and cases, and schematicism. During the 1950s the Czech poet and former Esperantist (1920–2000), also known under his pseudonym Jiří Karen, worked for several years with a team of prominent interlinguists on an elaborate project, Mežduslavjanski jezik ("Interslavic language"). Among other things, they wrote a grammar, an Esperanto–Interslavic word list, a dictionary, a course and a textbook. Although none of those were ever published, the project gained some attention of linguists from various countries. Probably due to the political reality of those days, this language was primarily based on Russian. The digital age Although Pan-Slavism has not played a role of any significance since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, globalization and new media like the Internet have led to a renewed interest in a language that would be understandable for all Slavs alike. After the fall of the USSR, the role of the Russian language as a lingua franca in Eastern Europe and the Balkans diminished, also because many inhabitants of other countries in the region perceived it as the language of their former oppressor. Older projects were largely forgotten, but as it became relatively easy for authors to publish their work, several new projects emerged, mostly in Slavic émigrée circles. Thus, during the first years of the 21st century projects appeared under names like Slovo, Glagolica, Proslava and Ruslavsk. Most of them were incomplete and abandoned by their authors after a while. The only project that acquired some fame in the same period was Slovio of the Slovak Mark Hučko. Unlike most previous projects it was not a naturalistic, but a schematic language, its grammar being based almost entirely on Esperanto. In addition, it was a fully functional language, and it became the first pan-Slavic language with a small user community. Slovio was not only intended to serve as an auxiliary language for Slavs, but also for use on a global scale like Esperanto. For that reason it gained little acceptance among Slavs: a high degree of simplification, characteristic for most international auxiliary languages, makes it easier to learn for non-Slavs, but widens the distance with the natural Slavic languages and gives the language an overly artificial character, which by many is considered a disadvantage. Hučko maintained a